Sting counter how many times I get stung

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This page will give you an idea of basic beekeeping overview

Honey bee swarm removal

If you happen to see a large swarm of bees gathered near or on your house, don't panic. You are not at risk of being stung or injured. They did not take up residence at that location, Honey bees will swarm on several occasions. Sometimes if there is not enough room in their current hive and they are over crowded they will swarm. A cluster like the one in the picture is very common to see in the summer in rural PEI, however if you see this and you want them removed contact us and someone will be in touch with you upon receiving the information.The bees will be removed and not harmed or destroyed, we take them back to our farm and provide a suitable hive for them to take up residence. The bees are looking for a new home and they stopped in that location for a rest, they sent out some scout bees to find a suitable location for a new home. The large cluster of bees will only stay there until a suitable home is found then as quickly as they came they will be gone. When bees swarm they generally will not sting, the reason for this is they have no hive or honey to protect. The queen will be in the middle of the cluster and she is all they are protecting so they are very docile when clustered like this. When you contact us please leave a call back number and the address.

Beekeeping Terminology

Apiary - colonies, hives, and other equipment assembled in one location for beekeeping operations; also known as a bee yardBee escape - a device used to remove bees from honey supers or buildings by permitting bees to pass one way but preventing their return.Bee space - 1/4 to 3/8-inch space between combs and hive parts in which bees build no comb or deposit only a small amount of propolis. Bee spaces are used as corridors to move within the hive.Beeswax - a complex mixture of organic compounds secreted by four pairs of special glands on the worker bee's abdomen and used for building comb. Its melting point is from 143.6 to 147.2 degrees F.Brace comb - a small bit of wax built between two combs or frames to fasten them together. Brace comb is also built between a comb and adjacent wood, or between two wooden parts such as top bars.Brood - immature bees that not yet emerged from their cells. Brood can be in the form of eggs, larvae, or pupae of different ages.Brood chamber - the part of the hive in which the brood is reared; may include one or more hive bodies and the combs within.Capped brood - pupae whose cells have been sealed with a porous cover by mature bees to isolate them during their nonfeeding pupal period; also called sealed brood.Cappings - a thin layer of wax used to cover the full cells of honey. This layer of wax is sliced from the surface of a honey-filled comb.Cell - the hexagonal compartment of comb built by honeybees.Comb honey - honey produced and sold in the comb. It is produced either by cutting the comb from the frame or when the comb is built in special frames which allow for its easy removal.Drone - the male honey beeField bees - worker bees generally two to three weeks old that work to collect nectar, pollen, water, and propolis for the colony.Frame - a piece of equipment made of either wood or plastic designed to hold the honey comb.Honey stomach - a specially designed organ in the abdomen of the honey bee used for carrying nectar, honey, or water.Larva (plural, larvae) - the second stage of bee metamorphosis; a white, legless, grublike insect.Laying worker - a worker which lays infertile eggs, producing only drones, usually in colonies that are hopelessly queen less.Mating flight - the flight taken by a virgin queen while she mates in the air with several drones.Mead - honey wine.Nectar - a sweet and often fragrant liquid secreted by the nectaries of plants for attracting animals. Nectar is the raw product of honey.Nosema - a disease of the adult honey bee caused by the protozoan Nosema apis. The microbe destroys the gut of the bee and severe infections result in malnutrition and dysentery.Nucleus - a hive of bees which consists of fewer frames than a typical hive and may be smaller in size. A nucleus usually consists of two to five frames of comb and used primarily for starting new colonies or rearing or storing queens; also called and commonly referred to a nuc.Nurse bees - young bees, three to ten days old, which feed and take care of developing brood.Package bees - a quantity of adult bees (2 to 5 pounds), with or without a queen, contained in a screened shipping cage with a food source.Pollen - the male reproductive cell bodies produced by anthers of flowers. It is collected and used by honey bees as their source of protein.Pollen basket - a flattened depression surrounded by curved hairs, located on the outer surface of a bee's hind legs and adapted for carrying pollen to the hive.Pollen trap - a device for removing pollen loads from the pollen baskets of incoming beesPropolis - sap or resinous materials collected from trees or plants by bees and used to strengthen the comb and to seal cracks; also called bee glue.Pupa - the third stage in the development of the honey bee, during which it changes (pupates) from a larva to an adult bee.Queen - a female bee with a fully developed reproductive system, and she is larger and longer than a worker bee.Queen cage - a small cage in which a queen and three to five worker bees are confined for shipping and introduction into a colony.Queen cell - a special elongated cell in which the queen is reared. It is above an inch or more long and hangs down from the comb in a vertical position.Queen excluder - metal or plastic device with spaces that permit the passage of workers but restrict the movement of drones and queens to a specific part of the hive.Royal jelly - a highly nutritious glandular secretion of young bees, used to feed the queen and young brood.Scout bees - worker bees searching for a new source of pollen, nectar, propolis, water, or a new home for a swarm of bees.Super - any hive body, or smaller box, used for the storage of surplus honey which the beekeeper will harvest. Normally it is placed over or above the brood chamber. Betterbee offers shallow, medium, and deep supers.Supersedure - the natural replacement of an established queen by a newly reared queen in the same hive. Surplus honey - honey removed from the hive which exceeds that needed by bees for their own use.Swarm - a large number of worker bees, drones, and usually the old queen that leaves the parent colony to establish a new colony.Swarming - the natural process of propagating a colony of honey bees.Swarm cell - queen cells usually found on the bottom of the combs before swarming.Worker bee - a female bee whose reproductive organs are undeveloped. The majority of the honey bees are worker bees and they do all the work in the colony except for laying fertile eggs.

Below is a chart that explains the life cycle of the honey bee. It isn't the best picture but I wanted to give you an idea of what takes place and how long things take to go from egg to bee.

Flower to fire- how bees make wax

The honeybees harvest nectar from flowers, return to the hive with this sweet floral essesence and concentrate it into honey. The Honeybee consumes the honey and with their wax glands on the sides of their bodies they transform the honey into wax scales. Workers around 6-12 days old can produce wax scales in their four pairs of wax glands. The glands are concealed between the inter-segmental membranes, but the wax scales produced can be seen, usually even with naked eyes. The scales are thin and quite clear. After workers chew them up and add saliva, it becomes more whitish.These wax scales are used by the honeybees to make honeycombs to store their honey in.The beekeepers harvest this honey and during the extracting process the cappings (the ends of the hexagonal cells) are cut or scraped off allowing the honey to come out. These cappings are melted, cleaned from debris and formed into bulk beeswax.

Here is a breakdown of a basic langstroth hive, the langstroth hive is the most common hive for keeping bees. There is also top bar hives.

So at the top is the outer cover, it is what it is

The inner cover allows you to remove the outer cover and not receive a blast of bees when removed. It also allows you some extra space to place pollen patties on top of the brood box

Shallow super is generally your honey box, some people use deep supers for honey but they are very heavy.

Queen excluder allows worker bees to move throughout the hive supers but restricts the queen bee from laying eggs in the honey super. This allows you to have clean honey without any brood in it

Upper super is generally where they will store their food (aka Honey). This is not harvested it is left on the hive for winter feed. Brood is in the upper super as well

Lower super is mainly where the brood is, however the queen will move between the lower and upper deep supers laying eggs.

Slatted rack is used to restrict cool breezes from going through the hive. I don't know many beekeepers that use these as most want to keep air flow to a max.

Bottom board is the landing area for the bees entering and exiting the hive. Sometimes it can be a mesh screen instead of a wood base. This allows for increase airflow and allows mites to fall out of the hive when they fall off the bees.Hive stand can be made of wood as this one is, cinder blocks, wooden pallets are what most use in commercial as it is easier to move them around in a field

Honey bee identification

Here is a picture that shows the size difference between the bees. I will post a picture of all three of them as I see them in the hive.

How Honey bees dance

Perhaps the most famous and fascinating “language” of the honey bee is communicated through a series of dances done by foraging worker bees who return to the hive with news of nectar, pollen, or water. The worker bees dance on the comb using precise patterns. Depending upon the style of dance, a variety of information is shared with the honey bees’ sisters. They’re able to obtain remarkably accurate information about the location and type of food the foraging bees have discovered.

Two common types of dances are the so-called round dance and the waggle dance. The round dance communicates that the food source is near the hive (within 10-80 yards).

For a food source found at a greater distance from the hive, the worker bee performs the waggle dance. It involves a shivering side-to-side motion of the abdomen, while the dancing bee forms a figure eight. The vigor of the waggle, the number of times it is repeated, the direction of the dance, and the sound the bee makes communicates amazingly precise information about the location of the food source.